Hothouse Rose

Live Girls! Theater

Through Oct 26.

Let me get the bad news out of the way quickly. This story of a young girl raised in a whorehouse in the 1930s is yet another offering from a playwright/director who clearly scoffs at the basic tenets of drama but who lacks either the commitment or the talent necessary to overcome their absence. In other words, this is a tremendously looooong play that takes itself far too seriously. Every single character wanders around aimlessly in search of a plot, and they all sound as if they're reading their blogs aloud.

The following exchange, between a Sweet Charity-type whore and one of her sweaty suitors, sums it up.

Boy: What is it you think this is about?

Rose: Hmmm. Nothing.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

The good news is that this play managed to get produced at all. Thanks to Live Girls!--a production company with a tiny but charming space and a noble agenda to produce new and under-produced work by women--a young, unknown playwright named Kelleen Conway was able to get out there and fall smack on her face. What better way to learn the craft of theater? And Live Girls! deserves applause for making it happen. Hopefully, Ms. Conway will pick herself up, dust herself off, and write something that makes some sense next time.

The other good news is that this play boasts plenty of lovely performances. As our heroine, Rose, Kathryn Carter uses her childlike bobble head to eerie effect. As the customer, Daniel Christensen floats in and out of scenes like a platinum astronaut. And as Lily, Brooke Rogers cunningly conveys brittleness and vulnerability simply by tucking a silk flower behind her ear. And confidential to Kate Czajkowski, who plays an enigmatic cinema star--you are one. Move to Los Angeles, honey. TAMARA PARIS

When We Dead Awaken

Steeplechase Productions at Liberty Deli

Through Nov 9.

It's been said that Henrik Ibsen, perhaps knowing that death was around the corner, cranked out this little play as fast as he could. When We Dead Awaken has always been considered one of his lesser works, for obvious reasons. Absent from the play are the serious, more naturalistic elements one usually associates with the writer of A Doll's House. Here Ibsen's typically intricate character development is pushed aside for a parade of easily digestible types interacting with shameless melodrama.

The famous artist Rubik (played with villainous conviction by Jerry Lloyd) is on extended holiday with his wife (the youthfully indignant Liz McGown) when his former model Irene appears (from the dead), demanding to be part of his life again. Rubik quickly drops his loveless wife for the woman who inspired his most celebrated sculpture, but there are conditions he doesn't expect, and age-old questions of inspiration and creativity haunt him at every turn.

Director Frances Hearn and her talented cast have taken Ibsen's melodrama and turned it into a nearly comical story about the struggle of artistic inspiration. With an expressionistic flair, the six actors move around on the tiny stage as if performing a modern dance--and I mean that in a good way. Actors become boulders, characters in the background silently flower or shrivel in response to the heat of the action, and when Irene speaks, the rest become an echo chorus. These playful elements, of a sort one rarely associates with Ibsen, succeed in creating a thoroughly satisfying evening of theater. GREGORY ZURA

The Trojan Women

Theater Schmeater

Through Nov 2.

Troy has fallen and it can't get up. The Trojans have been warring with the Greeks over that Helen chick for nine bloody years, and these poor women have been living through hell. They look it, too, moodily meandering amid the ruins of Troy all smudged and worn, dressed in red-Kool-Aid-stained, anachronistic "war victim" drag, poking through debris. Everyone is screaming, bombs are dropping, rape, murder, and misery abound. Suddenly the action stops. The bedraggled women regard the audience and begin singing, "Mama said there'd be days like this..." as if they were at some karaoke bar in hell.

When I first heard that playwright Charles Mee's "adaptation" of this creepy old Greek tragedy was to include "modern survivor stories" and (ohmygawd!) show tunes, frankly, I wanted to yak. But this production is pulled off with such grace and thoughtful consideration, the monologues from Holocaust and 9/11 survivors are almost indistinguishable from the original, hair-raising story. The inclusion of Britney Spears' teeny-bob pop and Broadway numbers was a clever move that works far better than I imagined.

If Women had insisted on barreling forward at an intense emotional pitch, it would have been impossible to bear. But director Sheila Daniels knows how to work a Greek chorus, and the musical numbers help to grease Women's wheels. The songs neither sugarcoat the wretchedness nor lighten the mood but provide another stark contradiction in this play of duality: war vs. reason, men vs. women, bloody murder vs. snappy numbers. The resulting show is arty, unnerving, and completely salient. It's enough to give you nightmares AND make you vote Democrat. ADRIAN RYAN